Pre-Europe #4: One day more...

Gah!!

Today has been crazy - and I'm realizing that I'm already slacking on the up-to-the-minute blogging!! Very sad indeed!!

Anywho - it's 2am - and I wanted to quicky blog and catch the past days up, because well, I'm not that keen on back-date posting (as I've been good to be doing previously) since it would take a gagillion years, AND I'm about to drop dead.

Anywho - since our big weekend shop - the following has happened in life:
shopped some more - went to the Pride Parade - bought more clothes - bought the little things and meat for Canada Day bbq - went to friends for Canada Day bbq - watched fireworks through my bedroom window from Mel Lastman Square - bought a lens holder - bought a 2GB CF card - got my car Drive Clean tested - renewed my car's license for two years - left Wyn-Wyn at her new home for the next three weeks - dropped the car off at my 'rents - packed my suitcase - packed my carry-on - fretted about weight - found out Air Transat flights back from Greece allow you WAY more weight for your luggage than the ones going to England do, even though it's the same bloody carrier.... and done!!

That's everything that's happened since the weekend - and I managed to work two days in there somewhere too.

Now all that's left for tomorrow - Day 1 of our trip - is cleaning the condo for my sister who's going to stay here - buying some in-flight snacks - and then off to the airport.

I can't WAIT!!

Pre-Europe #3: The buying ends?

Well - this Saturday basically saw me break my bank account. For a person who detests shopping, worries about money, and hates buying clothes above all other things - I not only did all three pretty much ALL day - but I believe I spent the most money I've ever spent all at once.

Ok - so some of it was pre-paying future bills, setting aside taxes and making sure that our rent is paid for the month we're away - but damn if I wasn't hyperventilating at all the money I saw disappear right in front of my eyes.

Today was basically a shop till you drop kind of day - and required a LOT of trying things on - cursing the lack of good-looking, comfortable walking shoes - and watching my credit card swipe over and over and over again. I believe VISA should be calling me first thing tomorrow morning to make sure that I didn't lose the card to a thief.

Anywho - what did we end up with? Let's see - first stop was dropping Bobo-Fett at at the groomers so that she didn't shed all over the carpet of her doggie-sitters for the three weeks we're gone - aka H-Rabbit's parents'. We then went and got H-Rabbit's new glasses and sun glasses so she could actually SEE Europe when we get there rather than just the end of her nose.

From there - we then made our way to Markville - where I picked up the very necessary socks and undies from Sears. We also met H-Rabbit's mom who works there - I was told to shop at Markville without visiting when we KNEW she was there was basically being asked to be murdered - so, c'est ca. H-Rabbit also picked up a pair of skorts that were on sale.

We then ventured elsewhere in the mall which led to tons of aggravating shoe shopping until we finally settled at Coast Mountain Sports. I think the sales rep was flabbergasted as what to do with us as we took forever, changed our minds ten times, and got him to bring out a ton of shoes.

At one point I'd even settled on a pair of walking-runners from The North Face for quite awhile as H-Rabbit was thinking about walking sandals and agonizing between a pair from The North Face and the super comfortable off-white flip-flops from Columbia - when I realized I didn't really like the shoes so much as the price - and that I really didn't want to buy something I hated just because it was cheap.

So instead - I went for a fairly expensive but good quality Keen walking sandal (since I needed sandals too for the super hot Italy and Greece) and H-Rabbit finally settled on a North Face gel-bottomed pair and we were at least set with one pair each (even though I still didn't have the walking-runners that I really needed...).

See - my problem with runners lie in that I absolutely adore Skater shoes - and hate running shoes - but Skater shoes are simply way too heavy and way to non-foot conforming for walking miles and miles and miles across Europe. The thing is - they are soooo awesome looking. You would think - that in this day and age - runners would also be awesome looking - but no. They're not - and for some reason - 99.99999% of them are white or at least white-based - and I detest that in a shoe. Especially if it's a shoe you reasonably expect to wear, oh, I don't know, outside!! In the dirt!! Where white shoes become brown!!

Anywho - back to the shopping. From there we then went to the Shoe Company to see if they had any runners I'd like - no luck. So we simply picked up our now half-the-size puppy (realizing that she is actually NOT fat - just fur-fat - and we actually have a damn skinny dog) and went home for a quick bite to eat before heading off to Vaughn Mills.

Oh - I forgot to mention - that amongst all that other shopping - we had also been stopping into clothes stores - however this had been mostly for H-Rabbit since I can't fit into anything on offer at most malls. So during our break - I also quickly looked up the stores that carry MXM so I could at least look young-ish in the chubby clothes that I needed to buy.

Before heading to our final destination of Vaughan Mills, we stopped at the Colossus Centre for me - and popped into the Addition-Elle they have there. After trying on a ton of clothes - I ended up walking away with: 2 bras (which cost a million dollars... ouch), 2 tank tops, some shorts, a bathing suit tank and a pair of skorts. That little trip alone cut into my credit card at a quarter grand - ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.

Let's just say from that point on I stopped counting - and still have yet to look at the damage. That's the task for AFTER writing this.

At Vaughan Mills - we did a lot more stops for H-Rabbit - but I DID find my running shoes!! Athlete's World finally had a pair of New Balance black running shoes that a) didn't look like a dog's breakfast, and b) I could actually see my self-proclaimed-designer-self wearing everyday without cringing at every step.

After that - I was feeling pretty good that my list was finally complete (sans some itty bitty things) that I actually walked myself into an H&M (which I hate doing) and managed to find not one, but two hats for under $20 total, so that I don't burn my head in the hot European suns.

Thankfully after that, we ended with dinner and came home. I am soooooooo dreading looking at my account. Especially since there are a few more things that we need to get - but hopefully now I can scrounge around the house and make a few "substitutions" to alleviate the wallet pressure.

Hopefully.

Pre-Europe #1: The buying begins

So we've got less than two weeks before we leave for our grand European adventure so all the purchases we have to make, that I was hoping to waylay, and magically forget about, are starting to pile up and need attention.

So today - we began with some of the fun stuff. Heather found a 75-300mm zoom lens on sale at Black's for our Canon digital SLR, so after work I ran to the super store at Dundas and Yonge and snatched it up. It was the only one left, and the only difference between it and the new version was that it didn't self-clean itself... whoop-de-doo.

While there - I also spent much time debating over a travel tripod and a monopod. In the end - I went with the monopod only because I found no use in the table-top size tripods and no matter how small the full-size travel tripods were, they still weren't small enough to fit comfortably in my backpack. At least with the monopod, I have stability AND I can manage to fit it in diagonally in my backpack. Plus - this particular monopod was only $25 - even though the much smaller, crappier and unstable Manfroto monopod was friggin' $84!

(Heather and I have already started playing with the new lens and monopod to get used to taking pictures quickly, as well as how things will go fi we shoot RAW for the entire trip. She's not liking that our numbers of pictures severely go down, but I LOVE what you can do to RAW to fix things that just aren't possible when the pic is already compressed.)

Oh! I guess I should backtrack a bit on our spending spree! Really - our trip shopping actually started two weeks ago when we first visited MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op) to look at bags - but that day we only managed to pick up the camera case. Then last week we went and spent a fair amount of time during a lunch break to pick out my main carry-on backpack that has tons of room and space for my computer, as well as two small "purse" back-packs for each of us to take on small day trips and anywhere that I don't want to carry a big load with me. We're hoping that we really don't end up having to carry all too much during the day - though we are both worried about the security of our belongings in some parts, and/or the ability to go back and forth from the bus/hotels, etc.

Anywho - back to earlier today. When I finished with the monopod and lens - I tried finding a case for the lens and was denied! Blacks' selection was not up to par - but I talked to Mike later tonight and he said I just need to go to the downtown Henry's and there'll be something for me for sure. I want the soft-but-firm qualities of Lowe-Pro - but hopefully not get stuck with anything that's too bulky. Lowe-Pro continually fails to recognize that most of their carrying cases/bags are 99% of the time thrown into yet ANOTHER bag and are not carried around just on their own - the straps are not comfortable and they don't hold enough stuff...

Lastly - I went to the inside-the-Eaton-Centre Black's afterwards (cause the other location was closing) to pick up a lens cleaning pack, and then to best Buy to check out memory card prices. Compact Flash cards are ridiculously and non-sensically WAY more expensive than any other memory card which really pisses me off. There's no reason for it and I promptly did NOT buy any more memory. I'm hoping the cards we have will do, and I'll just have to download every night before we head to bed to make sure that we're set for the next day.

And that was the end of the day's shopping. We hope to get something bought and put away on our list each day since we have so few left. I can't believe we leave so soon!